Ready To Read Book : Brownie & Pearl Step Out by Cynthia Rylant. Cythnia Rylant didn't read much when she was a kid. "There just weren't that many books around," she remembers. "No public library, no money to buy books, no bookstores, anyway." Instead, she spent her time playing, something she now says is the best thing for young writers to do. There was some writing available for her, in the form of Archie and Jughead comic books and paperback romance novels. So she earned her "training as a writer" with comics from the local drugstore, buying them "three for a quarter -- plus Danny Alderman who lived behind me used to trade me a big pile of his for a big pile of mine." When she was four years old, Rylant's parents got divorced, and she moved with her mother to Cool Ridge, West Virginia. She lived with her grandparents while her mother attended nursing school; their mountain home had no electricity or running water, and they had no car. Her grandparents grew and hunted their own food, and Rylant assures readers that, "Yes, I ate rabbits and squirrels!" Though she missed her parents, many of Rylant's strongest memories come from this time in her life. "It's that time," she says, "that seems to have sunk thickest into my brain and my heart, and much of what I saw and heard then has come into my books" After Rylant's mother finished school, Cynthia moved with her to Beaver, West Virginia, where they lived in a three-room apartment by railroad tracks. She went to elementary and high school in Beaver, going from a tomboy who "stayed on [my] bike all day and had fun playing war and Tin Can Alley" to a majorette in the school band. When her plans to marry her high school boyfriend, Eddie, fell through, Rylant went to Morris Harvey College (now the University of Charleston) and then to Marshall University, where she graduated with a master's degree in English in 1976. Out of college she worked as a waitress for a while, then a librarian at the Akron Public Library. She had discovered "literature" in college; now, working in the children's section at the library, she discovered classics like Goodnight Moon and Charlotte's Web. These first experiences with children's and young adult literature inspired her to write her own stories, so without telling anyone, she started writing at home Synopsis: Meet Brownie, a little girl with a flair for the frou-frou, and Pearl, her feisty feline sidekick! They’re heading out on the town for a birthday party, and the celebration is certain to be filled with friends and presents and games and treats. But when Brownie feels shy about ringing the doorbell, will Pearl be able to revive her stepping-out spirit?With its simple, snappy sentences and bright, adorable artwork, the Brownie & Pearl series is a playful introduction to the power of the picture book experience.